A low power 3–5 GHz CMOS UWB receiver front-end∗

A novel low power RF receiver front-end for 3–5 GHz UWB is presented. Designed in the 0.13 μm CMOS process, the direct conversion receiver features a wideband balun-coupled noise cancelling transconductance input stage, followed by quadrature passive mixers and transimpedance loading amplifiers. Measurement results show that the receiver achieves an input return loss below −8.5 dB across the 3.1–4.7 GHz frequency range, maximum voltage conversion gain of 27 dB, minimum noise figure of 4 dB, IIP3 of –11.5 dBm, and IIP2 of 33 dBm. Working under 1.2 V supply voltage, the receiver consumes total current of 18 mA including 10 mA by on-chip quadrature LO signal generation and buffer circuits. The chip area with pads is 1.1 × 1.5 mm2.